When you think about things that would really devastate your
business (you do think about those kinds of things from time to time,
don’t you?) losing your data has to be right up there as one of the
most devastating things that could happen. If your computer system
crashed, and you lost phone numbers, invoicing information, sales
histories, and all the things that your computer contains, you’d be in
a serious — probably life-threatening — situation.

I was reading John Jantch’s latest post on backing up your data (over at Duct Tape Marketing Blog)
and it reminded me of a situation I had several months ago. I was
working with a business that had all their data on one computer that
had not been moved from its place on the shop floor for years (why it
was on the shop floor instead of in the office, I still have no idea.
The manager was a hands-on guy, and he wanted the information where the
action was, I guess.) It was covered (literally, completely covered) with at least three inches of thick dust. I’m not exaggerating in the slightest. You could hardly tell it was a computer. I was amazed the thing even worked!

On that computer was all the data for the company. All the sales history data was there. All the accounts payable and receivable information was there. All the vendor contact information was there. Everything. Nothing was ever backed up. “Why back it up?” I was asked. It’s been this way for years with no problem. These older computers aren’t like the new ones. These old ones last forever.

Well, as you can imagine, they don’t last forever. This one didn’t survive a fire (and I suppose the water from the firefighter hoses didn’t help either.) The entire business history was lost in one fell swoop. There wasn’t one shred of information on that computer that was recoverable by any means. Now, I imagine if you owe somebody money, you can rest assured they’ll find you. But what about the people who owe you? Do you think they’re coming out of the woodwork to pay you? Not for a moment.

Something as simple as an off-site
backup would have saved this business tens of thousands of dollars and
months of headaches and heartburn as they tried to piece their business
back together literally from the ashes. The problem is, off-site backups cost $30 - $50 per month. Who wants to spend that kind of money when computers last forever?

Let me just say that you live and die by the information that is
generated by your business. When you wake up one morning and it’s gone,
the likelihood you will still be in business in 90 days is very low.
Now, if you are supporting your family (and, by extension, the families
of all your employees,) $600 a year may be the cheapest insurance
policy you ever bought.

I guess you can tell I’m a fan of off-site backups. Had my
manufacturing friends had a backup on a disk in the drawer in the
office, the result would have been the same. I know some companies do
backups and the IT people take it home with them. The problem I have
with that is, what happens if your IT guy gets hit by a bus (or robbed,
or whatever) on the way home and the disk ends up who knows where? I
don’t want anyone (myself included) carrying my entire business history
around town on a disk.

No, the best way to handle these things is to do business with a
licensed, bonded company that handles data. You data will be secure, it
will be protected and it will always be there if you have some
catastrophic event. For basically $2 a day you can protect your income
and that of all your employees. That’s a pretty good bang for your buck
if you ask me.